Many applications depend on sending and receiving relatively large amounts of data. Technologies based on transmitting data using light are a convenient option that offers high network bandwidth. There are a number of devices that use light for transmitting information.
Networking equipment may contain a large number of optical sources coupled to an equally large number of optical receivers through optical fibers. Optical sources, such as, optical engines, may be coupled to optical receivers through optical fibers.
It is often desirable to switch or ‘shuffle’ the optical signals carried in optical fibers within a multi-fiber optical connector. This task is often achieved by physically separating, or “breaking out” the individual fibers from one connector and re-routing them into a different configuration in one or more additional optical connectors. For example, in a blade computer system, it may be desired to route signals from the output of one processor to the input of two or more switches in order to provide redundancy.